


Heart and Soul of Punishment

by Winterstar



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, M/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:42:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6426187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He meets the man who will break him, break his heart and soul, in the library of all places. </p><p>Steve meets Frank Castle - a good or a bad thing happens. It depends on the point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart and Soul of Punishment

**Author's Note:**

> Why? I don't know it happened.

He meets the man who will break him, break his heart and soul, in the library of all places. Steve likes to go to the library. He often goes to the library when in New York City, just to sit and watch and learn. Other times, he goes to scan the computer and listen to the whispers around him. No one knows he has enhanced hearing, none of that ringing, the tinnitus, anymore to obscure the sounds and voices around him. He likes being in the library with the books and the shelves and the grand columns. Something about it comforts him and he feels more like he’s not a dusty old book lost in the stacks. It’s better here than in the coffee shops where he looks around and feels like he’s been dropped into an alien café. The young people with their code of dress and foreign language that somehow still skirts close enough to his vernacular that he almost understands it always seems so frenetic in the coffee shops. He watches them there too, not as a voyeur, but as part of his constant continuing education on the 21st century. 

It’s harder than the internet and a notebook. He’s learned that much.

Sitting at a computer with the results of his query streaming over the screen, Steve stares at the different options and cringes. He only wanted to know a little bit about the sexual revolution of the seventies. He wonders how it felt and how it could have been if there hadn’t been disease, drugs, and conservativism to bring the movement to its knees. He doesn’t know why he accessed the information in the first place. It’s not like Captain America needs a sexual awakening; he understands what he likes. It’s just that Captain America seems to need to be neutered in the eyes of the world as if he has no sexual drive whatsoever. Which is just ridiculous. Even Tony Stark laughed about it – more than once.

As he gazes at the screen, not really searching beyond the first page, he hears a muttering – angry, frustrated, and exhausted. He peers up over the top of the computer screen. It’s an old computer – the library needs more funds to upgrade. Steve doesn’t need to be here; he has state of the art computers in the Avengers facility in Upstate New York, but then everyone will know what he’s been up to. He’s not certain he doesn’t trust Tony not to spy on him. When he peeks over the top of the screen he spots a man in a dark trench coat with a black t-shirt on. The ball cap he wears is non-descript – no logo and black. Even with the shadows the brim of the cap throws over his face, Steve can see the bruising, old, new, all mixed in to make a mess of his face.

Steve stands up and walks over to the man. He doesn’t even try to hide that he’s going to check out this man and ensure he’s not a danger to anyone (including himself). 

“Sir, is there a problem?”

The man looks up and the pools of sorrow in his eyes are deeper and darker than anything Steve’s observed in his long life and war beaten experience. 

“Can I help you?” Steve asks, forgetting his first instinct that the man might be a menace.

“I just –I can’t,” the man says and points to the log in. 

“You need a library card to use for the log in,” Steve says and pulls out his own card. He types in the number and then clicks through the pages to the search. “Does this help?”

The man looks away. “Yeah, no. I don’t-.” His hands are trembling on the keys and everything about him screams so many different warning to Steve. But Steve ignores the alarms, his natural stance of confrontation. Of all people, Natasha told him he needs to learn to trust. He’d laughed at her when she said that and said - _like you_. She’d only raised her brow and shook her head. 

“What do you need?” Steve says and drags over a chair to help the man out. 

“Wanted to check on Red, you know the Devil of the Kitchen?” the man says.

“Devil?” The pieces fall into place. Red, Devil, Kitchen. It’s been all over the news. How the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was involved in some horrible drug dealer event on the rooftops of the city. “Okay, Daredevil.” He types in the name and, for good measure, adds Hell’s Kitchen.

A list of current news sources comes up. “Good, yeah, thanks.”

After a minute Steve nods, gets up, and returns to his seat to numbly stare at the information he pulled up. He clicks it closed and decides he might just need to leave well enough alone. He’s going to be alone for a very long time.

It comes out of his mouth before he can think. “Can I? Can I get you a coffee?” Steve says and it’s too loud for the library. Several of the other patrons’ heads pop up to look at him in condemnation.

The man across from him doesn’t realize that Steve is talking to him. So as not to break the rules again, Steve climbs to his feet and walks around the bank of computers to the man’s seat. “I’d like to buy you some coffee and maybe lunch.”

The gruff man considers him and frowns. “Why?”

“Because.”

“Okay.” The man shrugs and leaves his computer – the flashing icon with Daredevil and the police issues with vigilantism remain on the screen as they walk away. 

“Name’s Steve,” he says as he offers a hand. 

The man tilts his head at the hand, doesn’t take it, and simply says, “Frank.”

Steve doesn’t take offense to the man not shaking hand. He’s gotten used to the peculiarities of the day. He spends a lot of time with a team filled with peculiar people – one isn’t even a person but a computer come to life. “I think there’s a café around the corner.”

“Okay.” 

Steve walks with his hands in his pockets but notices Frank’s long coat sways heavily as if he has on more than just the coat. It’s too warm for the coat but not warm enough to take it off. Frank’s t-shirt is not solid black but has a picture of a skull on the front of it, as if someone used spray paint to create the depiction. Steve can still pick up a faint smell of the paint.

“Here we go.”

There’s not a lot to say during lunch. Steve thinks he’s going to do it out of the goodness of his heart, taking care of a man who is down on his luck. The scabbed knuckles, the black eyes, the cracked lips all tell of a life lived on the harsher side of things. The waitress takes their order – which ends up being breakfast foods even though it is well into the afternoon.

“Do you know the Devil?” Steve asks.

“Not really, kind of,” Frank says. “We’re crossed paths.” He pats his long coat as if to secure something underneath it.

“In a good way or bad way?”

“Depends on your point of view,” Frank says. “He’s trying to do something – something for the city.” The waitress brings the food and Frank taps the coffee cup. “Keep it coming.” Frank downs three cups of coffee and Steve smirks. “What?

“You remind me of someone,” Steve says. “It’s all good. So you know the Devil?”

“Like I said, only we crossed paths. Not sure about him. He’s got rules; he’s trying to do something for the city, like I said.”

“Is it the right thing for the city?” Steve asks.

Frank laughs as he eats the plate of eggs, bacon, and hash browns he ordered. He eats like he hasn’t seen food in days. “That’s funny, coming from you.”

“Me?”

Frank salutes and there’s something formal about it. It’s not like Tony’s salute or even Wanda’s salute that are half joking. This salute shows display and long term understanding of military protocols. “Cap.”

“Oh,” Steve says and wipes his mouth with his napkin. “You recognized me.”

“Kind of hard not to,” Frank says. “They call you a vigilante, at least some people do.”

“It’s different.”

Frank scrubs the air with his harsh laugh. “Sure, you keep telling yourself that, Spangley boy.”

Somehow Steve isn’t offended, probably years of nicknames from Tony helps. “Well, the Avengers are trying to help.”

“And the Devil isn’t?” Frank huffs. “You know, he don’t kill. At all, the idiot.”

“I try not to kill, either,” Steve says. He feels hot and tight. He wants to flee, but he stays seated. This man has a powerful pull, a sympathetic edge to the bruises on his face, but a hard look to his hands, the way he holds his body. He never hunches over his food.

“Try, I kind of like that word. It happens then? Sometimes, you kill?”

Steve doesn’t answer. He was in war, people died. It happens.

“Did you like it?” Frank asks.

Now Steve does stand up. “What kind of question is that?”

“One you’re afraid to answer, one you want me to answer for you, one you need me to answer for you.”

He pays the check and leaves without answering, but then it happens. He doesn’t know how it happens, he isn’t proud of what happens next – but they find their way to a back alley and he thinks they’re going to fight. Adrenalin and tension run high through his blood. He clenches his fists, ready for the fight.

He’s dead wrong – they aren’t going to fight- and he’s happy he’s dead wrong. Instead of throwing fists and beating on one another, as they walk into the alley and the shadows of the building become their cover, concealing them – everything changes. It feels like he’s walked through an envelope into a new reality. Without a word, he finds himself kissing Frank with a frantic almost desperate resolve. He’s not careful of the bruises on Frank’s face as he rakes his hands down his cheeks.

They tangle and fall and break things along the way. He’s not sure but somehow they are behind a dumpster and Frank is on his knees. He yanks down Steve’s jeans and rips off his ball cap. Steve swallows back his fear and anxiety as Frank takes his heavy cock in his mouth. Steve hyperventilates as Frank sucks him. It’s dirty and hell and everything that Steve needs and wants. He fucks into Frank’s mouth and doesn’t listen to the ghosts of his past or his present. He doesn’t yield, he doesn’t take it soft. He rams until he’s satisfied.

When he comes he growls out a yell and then with pause, Frank stands. He manhandles Steve, turns him around and tugs his jeans the rest of the way to his knees. Steve glances over his shoulder and watches as Frank spits out the come in his mouth into the palm of his hand. He spreads it into Steve. The touch, the invasion tightens Steve until Frank’s telling him to relax and Steve listens, Steve pushes back onto Frank’s thick fingers. When Frank’s thick cock breaches Steve, he sweats through it, pounds on the side of the dumpster, and sees stars. He rides out the fucking, begging for more and finally Frank thrusts into him with wild fierceness Steve longs for. Frank curls his hand around Steve’s waist to grasp his hardening erection. When Steve feels the heat of Frank come inside of him, he spills over Frank’s hand jerking for long moments after as they finish.

They are both panting, gasping for breath as Steve turns around, pulls up his pants. Frank zips his jeans. Steve notices then the weapons strapped onto Frank under the coat he never removed. He should ask, he should challenge him. Instead he says, “Steve Rogers.”

“Frank Castle.”

“Can I see you again, Frank?” Steve asks because this is not the whole story as he feels the warmth of the come slide from his ass. He wants so much more, he wants to taste Frank, he wants to live Frank.

“I don’t know, Cap, can you?” Frank says and winks. He walks away from Steve, leaving him in the dark alley. 

Steve doesn’t go after him. He stays put, watching Frank walk into the light as Steve remains in the dark. Intellectually, he knows something inverted today, something changed about his soul. Some stain both good and bad have taken hold. He looks down at himself as if he might see the stain, examine it. But the lack of light, and the darkness hides the truth. 

Steve confesses it to himself. He cannot deny it. He starts forward with every intention of forgetting Frank Castle, yet he knows that’s not to be. Frank Castle has taken hold of Steve Rogers – heart and soul.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](https://winterstar95.tumblr.com)
> 
> Look at that I made up a ship....
> 
> Can you imagine this ship? How angst filled? How much in love Steve would fall and then he finds out that Frank is the Punisher? The pain and utter angst are killing me.....


End file.
